Stolz Leads The Way As U.S. Skaters Add Five World Cup Titles In Inzell

U.S. long-track skaters won six medals while clinching five season titles as the ISU World Cup season came to a close this weekend in Inzell, Germany.

For the second season in a row, Jordan Stolz captured three season championships — dubbed World Cup Trophies — while the U.S. Men’s Sprint Team won its third consecutive title and Mia Manganello won her first.

Team USA ended the World Cup season with 36 medals, trailing only the 66 won the by the Netherlands.

The next international competition for the U.S. skaters will be the Olympic Winter Games beginning Feb. 6 in Milano and Cortina, Italy.

Stolz accounted for four of the U.S. medals in Inzell, and his Golds in the Men’s 1000m and 1500m secured unbeaten seasons for him at both distances. He set a Track Record in the 1000m with a time of 1:06.835 and finished the 1500m in 1:41.958.

“There isn’t any way I can get slower right now, so that’s good,” said Stolz, who has won seven World Titles since making his Olympic debut in 2022. “I’ve done a lot of training.”

In addition to his 1000m and 1500m titles, Stolz also clinched the World Cup Trophy in the 500m with a pair of second-place finishes in Inzell. Damian Zurek of Poland won both races.

“I was a little tired, but I felt like I skated pretty well,” Stolz said after Sunday’s second 500m final, in which he posted a time of 34.106 seconds. He finished in 34.260 seconds in the first 500m.

In total, Stolz won 16 races and 20 medals over five World Cup stops this season. His medals came in four race distances: 500m, 1000m, 1500m and Mass Start.

Conor McDermott-Mostowy, Cooper McLeod and Zach Stoppelmoor won a third consecutive World Cup Trophy in the Men’s Team Sprint, and they did it by winning in a Track-Record time of 1:17.615.

“We’re all pretty bummed it’s not an Olympic event,” Stoppelmoor said. “I think a lot of people agree it’s one of the most exciting races in speed skating. So hopefully one day.”

All three skaters are on the U.S. Olympic Team in other events.

Also heading to the Olympics with a World Cup championship is long-distance skater Manganello, who’ll compete in her third Winter Games. Manganello’s third-place finish in Sunday’s Women’s Mass Start clinched her first World Cup Trophy in a season that began with a win at the Utah Olympic Oval in the first World Cup. She captured third place in Inzell by just inches and won the title by one point over race winner Marijke Groenewoud of Netherlands.

“To be honest, it was obviously a great relief, but I was OK being second,” Manganello said. “Also, just being on the podium is a really great achievement for me. Luckily, I had a really good jab at the line for a third-place finish. It was really close.”

The U.S. ended the season with six World Cup Trophies, counting the one Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran won at the previous World Cup stop in Hamar, Norway. That win was their fifth in a row.

U.S. skaters recorded four additional fourth-place finishes in Inzell. They included Dawson in the Men’s 5000m, Brittany Bowe in the Women’s 1000m, reigning Olympic champion Erin Jackson in the Women’s 500m, and McKenzie Browne, Sarah Warren and Chrysta Rands-Evans in the Women’s Team Sprint.

Jackson (500m), Bowe (1000m) and the Women’s Sprint Team all finished third in the season standings.

Bowe, who will compete in her fourth Olympic Games in Italy, added a fifth-place finish in the 1500m. Jackson also finished fifth, just behind Bowe, in the 1000m. Greta Myers, who will make her Olympic debut this year, placed 11th in the Mass Start and 13th in the 1500m.

McLeod, another first-time Olympic qualifier, notched a pair of individual top-10 finishes: fifth in the Men’s 1000m and ninth in the first 500m. McDermott-Mostowy finished seventh in the 1000m, giving the U.S. three finishers among the top seven.

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USSpeedskating.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.